'Levo' is the Latin root that means to rise, elevate, or lift up. Being a young professional woman is difficult. But there’s no reason to do it alone. We are determined to provide you with the resources to become the woman you want to be and to elevate yourself into the most balanced, healthy, successful leader that you can. So ladies, dream bigger, get involved, stay inspired, and let's build this league together.

The Resume Feedback You Need to Hear That No One is Telling You.

As the co-founder of a professional development and recruiting platform, I’ve been receiving resumes from women nearly nonstop for months now. And these women are amazing. I’m constantly astounded by their accomplishments and dreams.

But I’m also going crazy with the way we present ourselves on paper. Despite the amount of time we’ve dedicated to covering resume framing that will give you the edge in applying for a job, resumes continue to pile in that pale in comparison to the actual achievements of the women who write them.

It’s time for some friendly feedback.

In the consulting world, the feedback we’re giving out today is lovingly referred to as “the s#*t sandwich.” It begins with a (true) statement affirming the object’s worth. Then it moves to the point of feedback. Finally, the subject aligns his or her interest with the interest of the object and moves the object to error-rectifying action. It goes a little something like this:

“You are a brilliant, smart young woman. Your resume does not tell me that at all. But I know that you can make it much better– and here’s how.”

These resumes I’m reading need work. Don’t get me wrong – what I am saying is that all of us need to be much better at selling ourselves and be more comfortable with self-promotion. I believe that all of us have truly unique and strong skills, but that in generally we suck at explaining those, especially on paper.

I get it, and I’ve said it and said it: this is hard. It’s especially hard for women, myself included, to speak highly about ourselves. There’s a checklist below, and it should be the final golden standard before you ever send your resume out to a recruiter. DO NOT send your resume out without reading, digesting and acting on the following:

1. DON’T USE ARTSY FORMATTING. I can’t stress how important this is. You might be the most exceptional candidate to ever apply for a company, but if your resume looks anything less than completely professional you will be thrown away. That means no color, no weird fonts, no strange borders. Check out this article we wrote on the subject: Resume 103: Packaging isn’t just about cosmetics.

2. KEEP IT DOWN TO ONE PAGE. Size is everything. Don’t ever let anyone tell you any different. On a resume you have very little recruiter-brain-bandwidth allotted to the sheet of page that describes your history, your hopes, and your dreams. Make every single word count. We’ve written about this many times, but Anna Stockley’s An Australian in New York sums it up best.

3. DITCH MEANINGLESS BLANKET STATEMENTS: If you don’t tell someone exactly what you’ve accomplished in your lifetime, they will have NO IDEA about any of it. You can’t say you are good at social media. That means absolutely nothing to me. Explain what you did that made that so powerful—did you rack up 500,000 Twitter followers for your company? Think critically about the value you can add to your future employer’s bottom line. You can bet they’ll be thinking about it. Here’s more on that topic Extra Credit: Resume clichés.

I guarantee you that these are the two most important things to follow for your resume.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.